Now and Then
by Scarlet Secret
Summary: A portrait and a legacy.


AN: Hope you like this story, but it is another in my little series, so (contains Constance) my fourth Black sister is present, but not for long, so you skip her part if you like.  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing.  
  
Somebody once called us angels. I disagree, it is impossible for any member of our family to be considered anything other than dark, but how can one be so absolutely evil at such a young age.? Looking at the portrait of the family, I can understand why they said what they said, but I don't understand how we became what we now are.  
  
The portrait has always been in the attic of the old house, along with every other thing that could suggest I had ever lived in this devastated place. The day I pulled away the dusty sheet hiding the image I remembered who I was and I remembered people I had tried desperately to forget.  
  
My own parents sat on a large, crushed velvet seat for four, along with my uncle and his wife, I refuse to refer to that woman as my own aunt, she has more evil in one part of her body than any of her daughters. Her name was Claudia and she hated me and hated her own daughters, hated them for being so much more powerful and beautiful than she was. She sat to the left of my uncle Jonathan, he did not seem to be enough for his wife, he was not the worst man he could have been, but he never satisfied Claudia, so she took lovers. A trait she did pass down to her eldest daughter, but none of the others.  
  
My own father sat next to him. I hated him more than I have ever hated anyone, including a former friend whom I wished I'd ripped limb from limb when I had the chance. My father bullied my brother and I, the only difference is that my brother believed everything Casper Black told him, I wilfully disbelieved everything he said and the rest of the family blame me for his early in life death. My mother, the one person I had a constant reminder of, by way of her other blasted portrait that I can't move. She put a powerful charm on that bloody thing. Everybody knew that Mirium Black was not to be reckoned with, even more so when she married in to one of the most powerful and old families in the wizarding world.  
  
Standing behind the chair are my two eldest cousins, Bellatrix, looking like she is carved out of stone and Andromeda, even then holding the secret that would be the final spark in our family's destruction. It never truly struck me until now how beautiful Bellatrix really was. I always registered that she was pretty when I was young, but around the time when I actually started noticing girls, was the last time I saw her, getting married of all things. But she was beautiful.  
  
Her ebony hair was forever sleek and shiny, but she never applied anything to it. Her eyes were dark and her lids simply made them look mysterious, her lips were full and painted blood red in this picture, but I know that she always had them coloured crimson. The colour of blood, she used to say. People said that her younger sister was the one with the aristocratic features, but differentiate from them, that honour belonged to Bella. Her cheekbones high and her nose and chin, all perfectly pale from make-up, although she was that pale anyway. At twenty years old Bellatrix could have broken hearts and she did with a vengeance, anybody who hurt her little sisters was soon dealt with accordingly.  
  
Andromeda would never admit that she actually fits into the family, but she could pass for a true Black easily. Her black hair compliments her slightly tanned face, she preferred to spend time in the sun, but she always kept pale enough so not to disappoint the adults, she was always wise. Her eyes were what set her apart from the family, they were softer than everybody's in the portrait and some of them were still children, Andromeda had just finished Hogwarts, she was glowing in the portrait and it is not until now that I realise why. She must have already been pregnant because before that summer was over she had left us.  
  
She couldn't have known then what damage she would cause. Two arranged marriages had to be altered to suit the dowries of more powerful families like the Malfoys and the Lestranges, leaving the Snapes only boy to be free in his choice of wife. Her departure broke the hearts of all her sister, though some of them showed no emotion and only acted as though a fish had died. Apparently it was a self-preservation thing.  
  
Sitting on a hard backed chair next to her mother was Narcissa. If ever anybody stuck out from the family it was her. Her sun-kissed hair was knotted extremely elegantly at the back of her head and her hands were positioned perfectly in her lap. It was apparent that she would be a wonderful trophy wife for whoever wanted her. She was like a china doll and she has adored the delicate pieces of work throughout her entire life, even today she has a room filled with them, or so I have heard. Her face was passive as she posed, straight backed and no expression on her creamy face, but a slight hidden smirk on her scarlet lips. It was quite obvious she had used one of Bella's many shades of red on her own face, and it merely made her look even more like a doll. She was only in her third year of Hogwarts but, if memory served she had known everything even then. She was only one year older than him, but she was sneaky and he had never toppled her with one of his many pranks. She had eluded him all his life and now he would never again see her safely, without them trying to kill each other.  
  
Sitting next to my mother is the youngest of the Black girls, Constance was an enigma. And she was the only one of his family he had much respect for. She had not been permitted to attend Hogwarts, in case those nasty Marauding boys ruined her life, so she had been packed of to Broomhead's and had come back a walking drone. Her emotion had been gone. In this preserved moment she had only been thirteen, the same age as him, her dark hair was shoulder length and brushed neatly and her face was smiling slightly, but her spirit was beginning to ebb away at this point, between the ages of eleven and eighteen I had not seen my cousin, I had met what was left of her. I have Minerva McGonagall to thank for returning her safely and completely.  
  
Sitting on the floor to the right is my younger brother Regulus. Idiot. I always though he was a bit of an idiot, but that was just normal sibling rivalry. In this picture however he is smiling widely as though he is the Cheshire cat that just got the largest and juiciest mouse in the country. He looks like a normal ten year old boy in this picture, just a happy boy with no cares and at this point I don't believe he did, but not long after he would become jealous of my knowledge and his cousins' abilities. He could never surpass Bellatrix but he seemed determined to become a Death Eater before any more of us, like we would have. Constance and I hated the Death Eaters and Narcissa was not stupid enough to have a mark blazed into her arm, so she could be recognised as evil.  
  
And next to him is me. Sirius Black. The outcast.  
  
Even then the rest of the family and the rest of the world could tell I was to be the outcast, the black sheep, the misfit, the troublemaker. I sit on the floor, but so does my brother. But my father's hand is on my brother's shoulder. They would make claim to him, but not me. Then it bothered me, I was young and I wanted desperately to be part of a family, all of them hated me, but two. And Andromeda just thought I was sweet before she left and Constance didn't speak to me during her years of emptiness.  
  
It was obvious then what I would be, but they were still mysteries.  
  
Now though, I know.  
  
Nobody would have guessed that the mighty Bellatrix Lestrange would be incarcerated in the fortress of Azkaban. That the proud, nobility would be forced to sink as low as a prison and eating anything, stale or cold to survive. The madder prisoners even ate rats at their lowest moments, but I suspect that she, like I did, managed to keep her mind. She will be ragged now, my hair became matted enough, but Bella's was waist length when she entered, she will probably be unrecognisable as this woman in the portrait.  
  
Who would believe that Andromeda, so awkward in this picture would become the happiest of us all.? Now she smiles even more than she used to, if her daughter is anything to go by. Andromeda may have sunk as Narcissa put it, but she is happy with her normal husband and normal life. She fights no wars and has not had her heart broken. She has never killed anybody and is nobody's target, if that life isn't to be envied then I will eat the creature that flew me to safety.  
  
Narcissa was so proud and strong in her youth, nothing could stop her, mush less the world and no man was to be in her path. Rumour has it though that after nearly twenty years of marriage to Lucius Malfoy she has become nothing, a shadow of who she once was, she now has no soul. She gave hers so that her sister could keep her own. Her powers, once so great have been exhausted by dark magic. She now spends her days maintaining her beautiful dolls, and she is still one of them. I believe she may now be indistinguishable from them.  
  
Constance has been gone for years. I do not know what has happened to her, but I wish I did, after she became whole again, she amused us for years with her relationship with Severus Snape. I thought she was just, in Marauding tradition, leading him into getting hurt, but she loved him and so he did he in return. They were both promised the Potions teacher position as partners when they were training and no doubt if she'd stayed they would have had a very enjoyable life. Dumbledore to this day just says it was necessary and it is the one thing I resent him for.  
  
Regulus became a true little hero for our parents when he joined the Death Eaters ranks as I knew he would and not long after he got himself killed when he tried to back down. There was a reason he was not a Gryffindor. He was a wimp. And he died for his trouble.  
  
Nobody would have believed I would have an outlaw's life, they thought I would be a rogue in my teenage years, marry a gorgeous woman, have loads of kids, give them normal names and follow a career as an Auror or something to that effect. It was my initial plan, but then fate got in the way.  
  
My family's legacy would catch up with me eventually, it caught up with all of the others, they were all punished for what they did. None of the Black children were angels, and none of them would ever reach peace.  
  
And now as I gaze unblinkingly at this old and story filled portrait I realise, we were made into what we were by the evil being who sat atop the blood coloured couch. They didn't make us into angels, but devils in disguise as respectable young men and women.  
  
We were, and still are the most dangerous breed of killer, the kind that looks dangerous.  
  
Because everybody looks for the quiet, sneaky looking ones, the blazing evil goes unnoticed. 


End file.
